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While Twino has served my portfolio well, then the time has come to stop investing there for me. Overall I have no issues with the portal or how it’s run, there are just a few reasons why it’s no longer compatible with my portfolio and there’s no reason to keep it.

Lack of short term loan volume

That isn’t to say that there aren’t short term loans, there are just too many investors who want to have those short term loans, meaning the level of cash drag you experience when waiting for your spot in the queue is a bit too much. There is also an actual lack of loan volume, mostly due to the lack Georgian loans.

BBG vs PG loans

Ever since PG (payment guarantee) loans were introduced I’ve struggled to get any BBG (buyback) loans. I’m not fundamentally against PG loans, however they do lock you in for a LONG time. The default rate at least in my portfolio was pretty big, meaning that quite a bit of my money is locked in for a fair bit longer than I’d want. The original reason why I added Twino to my portfolio was the liquidity of the loans, that is something that is no longer true.

Big changes in the business

Seems like Twino is going through some turbulent times. The Georgian changes, different countries they’re pushing into, structural reorganisation. All of those are understandable, however their communication seems to have fallen off a cliff somewhat. I’ve been waiting to read their 2016 financial report, and as of now it’s still not available.

Where is the money going?

Well, a part of the money is going into the down payment fund of my new home, but most of the money will be transferred to Mintos. There’s enough selection of long and short term loans for me to choose from and enough originators to manage portfolio risk.

How quickly will I exit?

Well, I got the money I added + a bit on top within the first week. After a withdrawal request it takes about two days for the deposit to appear in your bank account. So far I’ve managed to get about half the earning, and due to defaulted PG loans I’ll actually manage a full exit by April 2018… Which is a bit annoying, but I’ll live.

Overall Twino has served me well, with perfectly OK returns. Just since I stopped adding money almost a year ago now due to lack of accessible loans to my taste, there isn’t much point in keeping it about. I’ll see how they are doing and how the loan balances improve and may consider a return at some point.

Mintos and Twino portfolios are both steadily trekking on, and being probably the most passive part of my portfolio still. I kind of refer to them as my latte fund – my investments there are enough for me to afford a latte every day of the year, the worst financial sin in the eyes of some savings gurus Of course, I don’t actually drink a latte every day because I’m too lazy to actually go and get one, but the point still stands. Next goal for these two portfolios is to allow me to buy a Starbucks coffee every day. I’ll probably fill that goal before Starbucks actually opens a shop in Estonia!

Portfolio growth

Since I’ve been saving up money for a house downpayment, then I haven’t really been adding all that much money into my portfolio this year, and I’ll be a bit less aggressive with adding money until the house is ready and decorated and all those other million expenses that go with moving. However, both Mintos and Twino portfolios are slowly doing their thing, and I’ve started to add tiny amounts of money to my Mintos portfolio again.

I’ve stopped adding money to Twino due to the fact that for a couple of months there was a constant cash drag issue, where there weren’t enough new loans with attractive rates to really justify adding any money. If they get their pipeline going better again, I might reconsider, but I currently have 3500 euros floating around there, bringing in about 35 euros/month, so it’s a nice and slow growing portfolio.

Mintos however is really showing impressive growth, both in terms of loan volumes and amount of originators, being well on the path of becoming a P2P market leader in Europe. While I’ve been quite liberal with my autoinvest settings in Mintos, then about 90% of my Mintos portfolio is still mogo loans, which have served me well. Currently I have 4400 euros circling around, bringing in about 45 euros/month, so also a nice passive portfolio.

Returns

Now, returns are however on a different track and instead of climbing upwards they are steadily declining. This is inevitable as more money pours in to P2P, and there is more competition in the field. Currently Twino returns show as 13,42% and Mintos returns show as 13,03%.

As time goes in, I expect both of them to balance down to about 11-12%, which is still impressively good for such a passive investment. I literally just transfer money in whenever, and don’t really even log on to check the results all that often.

The only interesting thing in the past few months has been the fact that since Eurocent is struggling, I’ve checked occasionally how my one Eurocent loan (22€ loan piece) that I’d managed to pick up is doing. I’ve also pushed my Twino portfolio to be abit more towards shorter term loans, bringing the average length down, now that there aren’t much BBG loans anymore.

Time flies when you’re having fun, huh? My Bondora portfolio is now three years old, so I thought I’d take a quick look back and see what’s been happening and share a bit about my future plans when it comes to my private portfolio in Bondora.

Some quick stats to get started:

Total money invested: 5000€

Total interest earned: 2031€ (as of 30.12.15)

Current portfolio: 80% Estonian loans

Loans by rating: see below

So, the good, the bad and the ugly. Overall I am happy with how my Bondora portfolio has performed. I also took some time to calculate my returns, and this is the current standing for my own calculations for returns:

Option 1 (Super pessimistic)

Option 2 (Less pessimistic)

The pessimistic scenario looks rather pessimistic indeed, but don’t get stuck on those numbers. This is because it assumes no recovery for loans, but I can actually see recovery happening, so no need to panic. Overall in the long run the returns will be somewhere in the 12% range, it has balanced out more and more as time has gone on.

Future plans

I have completely stopped adding money into my private portfolio, and once new year starts I will start actually taking out money. There are several reasons for this. 1) I am building a second Bondora portfolio for my business account (going well so far, have given out my first 100 loans), 2) The tax hit is just getting too big (before, it balanced out with my mortgage tax return, but this year I’m actually paying additional tax), 3) Benefits of investing as a business – both in terms of accepting defaulted loans and postponing tax obligations.

So, as of today, I have set my bids to AA & A Estonian loans, however many there may be, and hope to transfer out the 5000 euros that I invested in the next two years. This money will be directed into stock investments, mostly into buying into index funds regularly, since stocks are the most reasonable investment for a private person in Estonia. I predict that my private portfolio will remain in the range of 3000€, and I’ll keep it slowly spinning to track how it does.